


Reap the Stars

by XarisEirene



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Lives, Canon Compliant, Character Death Fix, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, F/M, Flowers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Ghost(s), Force storm, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, POV Ben Solo, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, RFFA Valentine's Exchange, Redeemed Ben Solo, Redeemed Rey, Rey is a Palpatine (Star Wars), Reylo - Freeform, Sharing a Bed, Soft Ben Solo, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, The Force Ships It (Star Wars), The Princess Bride References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28924134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XarisEirene/pseuds/XarisEirene
Summary: The prompt: After Ben's death, Rey goes mad and turns to the dark side. Only Ben's not dead anymore.-----------------------He darts forward and folds her heaving shoulders within his embrace. Her tears soak his chest. But the bond—the bond clears and surges open like shared breath. Like a wave of light cresting over an undertow of dark. The push and pull of life coursing between them. He feels whole again. Oh, the relief.“Rey,” he murmurs into her hair. It’s grungy and snarled and he couldn’t care less. “Rey. Sweetheart. Whatever is wrong in the worlds can be made right so long as we have each other.”
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 28
Kudos: 52
Collections: Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms, To Find Your Kiss: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	1. Burn the Galaxy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abbytheatre08](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbytheatre08/gifts).



> Thank you for the wonderful prompt. I would never have had the inspiration or courage to embark on this otherwise. I just hope I did it justice. I had fun incorporating as many of your likes and tags as I could, especially flowers and The Princess Bride (all quotes from 1987 film).😉❤️
> 
> Everyone else: Character death is temporary and happy ending guaranteed. I’ve moved some of the content/trigger warnings from tags to chapter end notes so that I could include specifics and what to skip—which also makes them rather spoiler-ish. 
> 
> This story starts just after Ben’s death in TROS. Here's how the chapters fit into the film: chapters 1-2 occur off-screen, chapter 3 is a different interpretation of the canon-compliant ending, and chapter 4 is the post-movie fix-it. 
> 
> If you like tragic endings, a la Rogue One, stop after chapter 2. For bittersweet, a la TROS, stop after chapter 3. For the HEA, read through chapter 4. For sweetness and fluff only, LOL, skip to chapter 4 and read as if it follows a canon TROS end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jump to end note for this chapter’s content and trigger warnings.

> “Fezzik, do you hear that? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when Count Rugen killed my father. The Man in Black makes it now.”

Rey comes unmoored. Ben is gone, and nothing tethers her to this life any longer.

She screams and fissures splinter across Exegol’s crust. Stone crashes down and dust billows up. She screams and the kyber crystals fracture in their hilts. Sound tears from the depths of her being—fear and anger sculpted from the ashes of loss and breathed to life. It shatters the planet’s foundations and uproots her very soul.

When screaming fails to vent the dark energy boiling within her veins, Force-lightning erupts from her outstretched hands and forks skyward. Power streams in a blinding current—endless power fueled by endless pain. It is the sound of ultimate suffering. She screams until the vapor of her breath empties the skies.

She claws her fingers and yanks the Force. The Citadel’s enormous monolith commences a slow collapse inward, as if it would entomb her where Ben fell. Maybe she should surrender and join him in the halls of light. Who is she fooling? The Force will never claim her charred and blackened heart. Not now. If she’s ever to reunite with his soul, it will be by the force of her will alone.

She leaps through the descending portal, bounding from boulder to boulder as they tumble, and alights on the dead surface. A thousand burning starships litter the horizon, casualties of her fury. She does not lament. First Order. Final Order. Resistance. They deserve it. Every last one of them.

For Ben. Though it is an offering far too small.

Pearl light breaks across the sky, barren save for a few Final Order destroyers. Rey pilots Ben’s TIE into the nearest hangar and faces the Sith Troopers with a hilt in each hand.

The sabers ignite and twin screams wail into the Force with unbearable sorrow—and unstoppable power. Rey staggers to one knee under the onslaught and then surges forward, a lethal blur of crimson blades. She slashes through the corridors to the bridge. Bending the crew to her will is as nothing. If they call her Empress Palpatine and kneel in obeisance, she will not argue, though that is not her role. As once they served her grandfather, now they will serve her—until her purpose is fulfilled.

The Sith wayfinder guides the ship into space. Rey observes untouched, her heart numb and senses dull, as the axial superlaser explodes the planet’s core and Exegol disintegrates. Death ravages the Force like a wildcat.

Alone in the throne room, she turns her back on the rubble drifting in vacuum and sets her face toward the Core worlds. She will end this war once and for all, beginning with the Outer Rim and Western Reaches, sweeping around the galaxy, and circling ever inward like water siphoning down a drain. Only she has the means to finish it. Then peace will reign forevermore.

“Call me the Twin Blades of Justice and the Dread Avenger Solo,” she rasps, her throat raw from screaming. From the dust and the smoke. “Call me She Who Will Not Be Stopped.”

There are none to hear.

***

Ben wakes. He saws his tongue in his mouth, desperate for enough saliva to swallow, but he’s parched. Water. He needs water.

Is this another lesson? Has his master abandoned him on a planet to survive with nothing? No, that’s not right—he killed Snoke.

Water. First, water.

His eyes crack open on darkness—and wan light somewhere behind him. Where is he?

He remembers Rey’s eyebrows pinched tight, her face fading from sight, and shards of fear spiking into him across their bond.

_Rey._

The haunted chamber, the excruciating pain, that wondrous kiss—Rey! She must be here, somewhere, buried with him on Exegol. He has to reach her. Water. She’ll need water too.

Ben rolls onto his side and strains to lift his head. The muscles in his back quiver. His mortal injuries seem to have vanished, but he’s weak as a newborn. Light streams through an archway between pourstone walls. And there’s sand. Sand everywhere. He hates sand.

This isn’t Exegol. Where’s Rey?

He crawls forward on his elbows and sand scours his sensitive flesh. He’s naked as a newborn too. He’ll need protection from the elements. After he finds water. And Rey. 

Ben reaches the entry and squints into the sun. Sand half-fills the sunken courtyard and a dune rises up, up, up to ground level. His heart quails. He’ll never gain the top, not without water.

He collapses onto his stomach and his cheek flops into the sand.

 _Rey_.

He reaches into his soul, into that place where they’re always connected. The Force writhes with the dark side, darker than anything he’s ever encountered, darker than Snoke or Sidious or Mustafar. Dark as smoldering pitch, threatening to erupt into eternal flame. He curls onto his side, draws his legs toward his chest, and clutches his knees.

If Rey is there, lost in all that dark, he must find her. Save her. Who knows the dark better than he?

Ben follows the thread of their bond, wades in—a fluttering light, a match in a maelstrom—and is jettisoned from the churning void. He tries again and again. Until he sprawls, panting and gasping, his mouth drier than the sunbaked desert.

His eyesight flickers like a malfunctioning droid—once, twice, three times—and sputters out.

***

Rey watches as more systems fall to the destroyer’s superlaser. She will obliterate them all. None can withstand her rampage. Death shrieks in the Force with unbridled agony and the dark side swells, consuming and inexorable.

The galaxy will suffer as she has suffered. The Force will scream as she has screamed. They will pay the price for their betrayal. Until there is peace at last.

 _Yes._ For Ben.

She is a warrior, her sword flashing as she lays about with vicious speed and the planets pile like spoils around her. Let them plead for clemency until their voices are silenced. Let their blood run until rivers flood with rubies, until the worlds are deluged in scarlet.

She is a gleaner swinging her scythe to harvest the skies. She will reap the stars and carry them as an offering to Ben’s feet. She will lay them like a hoard of jewels within his tomb.

 _Ben._ Her heart wails with longing. _Ben. Where are you?_

And she dares to reach, as another system capitulates, for that place where he’s always been. She’s prepared for the ache of emptiness, but he’s there. The connection is faint, the merest hint, the sun peeking through thunderclouds and vanishing again. Her spirit soars for one glorious, fleeting moment.

But she witnessed him fade into the Force. He dissolved in a glimmer of blue before her eyes, and his clothes crumpled into Exegol’s dust. A puff of air and he was gone. Quick and quiet as snuffing a candle.

_Ben._

It must be the dyad. Even Ben becoming one with the Force cannot divide them. The tether that unites their souls must stretch across the veil between life and death, thin and shaky but unbroken. To feel him always near and yet forever out of reach, to know the warmth of his heart but never of his arms, to see the light in his soul but never in his eyes would be a mercy most severe.

She will not concede. She will not live without him. The Force will pay. Cruel, cruel master to steal him away when he’d so recently reclaimed the light, when he’d raised her from death, when they’d stolen only one kiss from a lifetime of thousands.

Another system plummets into nothingness, and the divided Force howls in mingled protest and victory. At this rate, she will succumb to old age before she conquers the galaxy. Rey seizes the gravid dark in her fists and pitches it like a smothering blanket over entire sectors.

 _For Ben_. Though she cannot feel him, hidden as he is somewhere beyond the storm.

“Hold on, my love. I’m coming.” She doesn’t bother to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

There are none to see.

***

Ben’s nearly to the dune’s crest. His universe has shrunk to the confines of this courtyard, to this mountain of sand. Anguish drags its bitter pall across his vision. He’s lost track how many times he’s passed out. The Force is a useless, slippery thing he cannot wield. His scorched shoulders burn even though night has fallen, and his underside is ragged from grating across the coarse grains.

He hauled himself out of Exegol’s pit when he was battered and broken. If he could crawl another meter, he could see what lies beyond. Probably just the desert’s vacant stare.

A dark egg-shape nestles at the wall’s base, and he stretches for it. The shell is hard and mottled black. Something edible? He breaks it open and gags at the reek, but the insides are wet. Slurping the liquid and gnawing the flesh from the rind soaks his mouth in moisture. He moans with pleasure.

Fetid it may be, but it gives him strength to finish the climb. Ben pulls himself over the edge and leans his sore back against the wall. He can’t see much, only flat land fading into the night.

Stars gleam like kyber in a cave. Some constellations are familiar—except for the odd missing star—but not recognizable enough to pinpoint his location. Even as he studies the firmament, more lights wink out and he bowls over with a gasp.

His lungs contract in short, sharp breaths and his vision dims before he masters it. Such anguish. The same pain that knocked him out earlier, not from exertion in his weakened state then, but in the Force. He’s felt this before. When Starkiller Base destroyed the Hosnian system in the great cataclysm. This is mass extinction, life swallowed in death.

Something’s terribly wrong. The Force is a wheel spinning out of balance, a jarring discordance in the music of the spheres. The dark side is a dread fog creeping across all existence and suffocating the light.

And Rey’s in its midst. Somewhere. What could have happened? His beautiful, bright Rey. The other half of his soul.

 _Rey_ , his heart cries. _Rey, please. Wait for me._

He inhales the dry air to steady himself. Sitting here, staring at the stars, and plumbing his misery accomplishes nothing. He must reach her. He didn’t save her only to lose her again. He needs water, clothes and a means off this filthy planet.

Ben scans the gloom. There. A narrow spire silhouetted in starlight. A vaporator. If he could make it run, at least that would appease his thirst. It’s been a while, but he didn’t grow up on the _Falcon_ without learning a thing or two about repairs.

He’s too dizzy to stand. Determination sends him scuttling across the sand like a beetle.

He grabs the vaporator’s access panel and pulls. This time the Force complies. Bolts pop free and the metal sheet shears away in his hands. Momentum shoves him onto his rear and the corner slices across his bare thigh.

Blood spurts from his femoral artery, then burning pain. He stares, transfixed, before pressing hard to staunch the flow. His pulse pounds beneath his fingers.

He’s too weak; he’ll never be able to hold it. And there’s nothing to serve as a tourniquet. He’s going to die. He’s going to bleed out in the dust.

 _Rey._ A cool tear trails down his sun-fired cheek. He catches its salt on his tongue as he slumps sideways. _Rey. You’re not alone. I am with you. Always._

***

Sectors fall one after another. Like boulders before a rockslide. Like tents before the X’us’R’iia’s mighty breath.

Rey is the bringer of death. She devours the suffering, consumes the agony, feeds the power with every life extinguished. She is the maelstrom, a Force-storm knocking planets from their axes and hurtling them into a well of oblivion.

She is consuming fire, magnificent in her rage. She will burn the galaxy to its foundations, until the ashes rain down and pile high as mountains. She will gather them into bouquets and scatter them like petals upon his grave.

He will be remembered, and they will not.

Call him The Light Bearer and Joy Giver. Call him He Who Loved and Laid Down His Life. Call him Ben.

_My beautiful, beloved Ben._

Grief twists and wrings her heart like a garment soaked with tears. She screams and lightning ignites the fabric of space. She weeps and shreds the heavens.

Only one planet remains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content/Trigger Warnings  
> \- Death/dying and mass extinction: Mentioned but not graphic or detailed. Metaphorical images of annihilation. Scenes alternate POV between Rey and Ben; skip all scenes from Rey’s POV (remember the prompt—she’s gone mad and fallen to the dark side).  
> \- Survival: Context for all of Ben’s scenes.  
> \- Nudity: Ben left his clothes on Exegol (!). Not sexual or graphic; however, the fact is referenced in Ben’s scenes.  
> \- Blood: Metaphorical mention in the third scene (Rey POV). Skip the paragraph that starts with “She is a warrior, her sword flashing …” and resume at next paragraph, “She is a gleaner swinging her scythe…” In the second to last scene (Ben POV), there’s a brief injury-related mention. Skip from “He grabs the vaporator’s access panel…” and resume with the last line in the scene “Rey. A cool tear trails down his sun-fired cheek.”
> 
> Reference  
> \- Axial superlaser. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Axial_superlaser  
> \- X’us’R’iia. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/X%27us%27R%27iia  
> \- Force storm. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_storm_(wormhole)
> 
> For the title, I had in mind Winston Churchill, who said when witnessing the devastation of WW2, "They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind." He was quoting Hosea 8:7 as have much literature and arts before and after him.


	2. Harrow the Heavens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jump to end note for this chapter’s content and trigger warnings.

> This love was stronger than the powers so dark | A prince could have within his keeping | His spells to weave and steal a heart | Within her breast, but only sleeping – from “Storybook Love”

His mother’s face hovers above him, luminous with a cerulean glow. He’s died and faded into the Force. At least he is here with her.

“Not yet.” She bestows a tender smile. “You’re our only hope, Ben. Our last hope.”

Her palm on his thigh spreads light through him, gentle and warm, lapping at his conscious like a lagoon in the Silver Sea. She’s healing his wound. He should be embarrassed by his nudity, but he’s too tired to care.

“I’m your mother.” She dismisses him with the same blunt candor he’s known since childhood. “Naked I brought you into—”

“Mom,” he interrupts. “I—” Words fail. There’s too much to say, too much to feel. “Forgive me.”

“Now sit up. Who knew my little starfighter would grow into such a hulking giant of a man.” She nudges his side and he complies. The stars spin like a top—then settle. She tugs sleeves up his arms and a tunic over his head.

The fabric chafes across his blistered shoulders and he winces. “Thank you.”

“That’s better.” She chuckles low. “Can’t have you meeting Rey in your birthday suit, although— Maybe that’d shock her back to her senses.”

_Rey._

He grabs for Leia, but his hand passes through hers like an illusion. “Rey needs me. Something’s wrong. In the Force.”

“You don’t say.” Luke’s ironic tone precedes his appearance from behind the vaporator, which is now chuffing in the still night.

“Master Luke?” Ben gapes with the confusion of surprise and bitterness and longing that surfaces upon seeing his uncle.

“Still a pain to repair and I don’t even exist on this plane anymore.” Luke brushes dust from his phantom hands, as casually as if his nephew hadn’t been trying to exact his revenge last time they met. “At least you won’t die from dehydration before she arrives.”

They’re on Tatooine then, and Rey’s coming. Ben doesn’t bother to assert that he could have fixed it on his own.

“You never did like my help, but you’re welcome anyway.” Luke shakes his head and moves to stand behind his sister. “Don’t worry, kid, the hardest part is still all yours.”

What’s that supposed to mean? Ben wants to ask, but his mom’s eyes are full, she ghosts her fingers down his cheek, and he can’t help leaning into her evanescent touch.

“My darling boy, I love you. Whatever comes. We’re with you.” She stands and wraps her arm around her twin. And then they’re gone.

Petrichor’s faint odor reaches Ben’s nostrils and he scrambles for the vaporator’s spigot. Nothing has ever smelled sweeter.

***

Rey watches until the shuttle disappears from sight. This is her one concession to the frailty of human nature, a contingency should courage forsake her when the blade is at her throat. Autopilot will ensure the shuttle returns to the destroyer orbiting Tatooine like a massive graveyard in the sky. Will an explorer from another galaxy stumble upon the ship someday and wonder what occurred to instigate such atrocity? They will never recognize her masterwork for what it is, a monument to perpetual peace and memorial to her lost love. But she didn’t do it either to be revered or despised; she did it for Ben.

Enough. She has not come to philosophize but to prepare for the end like a priest performing last rites. The domed structure she sought squats in the sand, weathered and grey beneath the afternoon clouds. This is where the Skywalkers began, more or less, and this is where they will end.

She surfs the dune into the compound’s heart and pokes around the abandoned rooms. The functioning vaporator she passed suggests a trespasser, and a large one, if the disturbances in the dust are any indication. Not that it matters, considering.

Rey returns topside and drives Luke and Leia’s bleeding lightsabers deep into the soil. Drives them like spears into a soft underbelly. They are the last evidence of betrayal, that those who should have loved Ben most and understood him best—his mother and his uncle and his grandfather—failed him first and set his course. In the great conflagration, the kyber crystals will melt into the elements and rejoin the stardust from whence they came.

She heaves a weary sigh as she rises from her knees. The dark side exacts a steep toll, but her work is nearly done.

A nomad pauses in her travels, skin leathered by sun and wind, and asks for Rey’s name.

In the moment she considers, a faint mirage of the Skywalker twins appears on the horizon, gazing upon her with compassion and pity. How dare they judge her, they who judged Ben first.

_I am coming_. She bares her teeth at their ghostly forms. _I am coming and you cannot stop me. Death will not hold me. Chaos will not contain me. There is nowhere you can go that I will not find you. I am coming with vengeance in my hands. I will harrow the heavens and you will know the infinite dark._

To the nomad, she says only “Rey Skywalker,” that the crone might know who is to blame, in whose hands rests the fate of the galaxy. When her wizened mouth sags in torment, when the air is ripped from her lungs and life from her body, let ‘Skywalker’ fall like a curse from her lips.

The wanderer and her beast of burden lumber into the distance. Rey faces the lowering suns. All that remains is to wait.

_Ben_ , her heart whimpers. _Ben, my love, I’m coming soon._

The raging dark is calm for now. A fire banked, coals ready to flame up at the least tinder. The still eye of the storm before it sweeps her again into the tempest. She welcomes the respite, brief though it must be.

These twins suns— are they brother and sister or a mated pair, always chasing and never overtaking? Will that be the price of what she has wrought? Cursed to forever chase Ben’s light?

His soul feels closer here, in the quiet, where all that separates them may be measured in minutes. It is fitting that her final moments will echo her first memories. She will die as she has lived. In a desert. Alone.

***

Ben tracks the white Lambda-class shuttle as it enters—and then exits atmo. His heart takes wing, eager to give chase, but it is a futile bird fettered to his chest.

Only the oppressive weight of darkness remains behind. Is Rey here? He’s kilometers away. Luke said she would come, but he didn’t specify when and Ben’s stomach demanded sustenance. At least he scrounged more black melons, their milk nourishing if vile.

He abandons the hunt and adopts an uneven, loping stride back toward the Lars homestead. His makeshift weapon—a rummaged vaporator rod—taps as a staff beside him.

The suns are setting and bronze the desert by the time he overtakes the compound. Each step brings him deeper into the darkness seeping through the Force like an invisible fog, thick with the cloying scent of decay.

Rey stands motionless, her back silhouetted in a fury of orange. She pulses with deepest dark at the miasma’s epicenter, as if she were its source and sustainer. But that’s impossible.

The Force bristles with warning, Ben’s fine hairs stand on end, and he stops several paces behind, even though he longs to throw his arms around her.

“Rey,” he calls.

She whirls, hands upraised, and blasts him. He flies backward, his inflamed shoulders collide with the compound’s wall, and he slides to the ground in a boneless heap.

“Ow.” He groans. Should have expected that.

She stalks forward, her face twisting to match his breaking heart. Purple crescents underscore her sable lashes and highlight the sharp ridges of her cheeks. And her eyes. Her irises spark amber to rival any Sith lord. How could this have happened? _Oh, my sweet Rey, come back to me._ But she cannot hear, not through the impenetrable dark occluding their bond. Blood and dirt soil her white clothing, and more abrasions mar her body than last he saw her.

He would kiss each one away, if she would let him. He would hold her and heal her and tell her that all will be well. If she would let him.

She halts and her towering figure casts him in shadow. His spine prickles with fear—for one instant—before yielding to admiration. The dark within her coils and snarls like a rabid beast; there is a terrible beauty to her power. As he had always known there would be.

“Who,” she glares down at him and grits out, “are you?”

“Ben,” he says, then adds when his name doesn’t trigger the anticipated effect, “Solo.” Does she not recognize him?

“Ben is dead.” Her nostrils flare. “ _You_ are an imposter. _You_ have no right to wear his face or walk in his skin. I would _know_ him. I would _feel_ him.” She pounds her fists over her heart. In their bond, she means, and his soul splinters. How far she has fallen and how heavy the price, but surely he can recall her from the brink. Was this how she felt confronting him as Kylo Ren?

He pushes to his feet and spreads his palms in entreaty. “If I died, I didn’t stay dead. I only—I closed my eyes on Exegol and opened them on Tatooine.”

“No!” Her scream rips into the Force like a predator’s claw. Lightning crackles between her fingertips, the atmosphere bridling with static. “Impossible. You lie.”

A metallic taste in his mouth alerts him to the moment before discharge. He throws up his hands, and her lightning scorches into his palms. He won’t reflect it back. He won’t hurt her. Somehow he neutralizes everything she hurls at him, the concentrated energy dissipating into the Force, but the effort saps his limited reserves. How long before he’s consumed? His jaw clamps with the strain. Shimmering light warps her gaunt face with jewel tones. His beautiful Rey is still in there, somewhere, in the heart of darkness.

“Then feel me,” he yells in challenge. “You know me, Rey. You know my heart, my soul. We’re a dyad—two that are one.”

Tendrils of hair swing with the frantic shake of her head, but the dark retreats a fraction and an echo of her doubt trickles into him. The lightning ceases.

“Yes.” He shakes out his smoking hands, and his lungs swell with air. “That’s it.”

“No—” She scrabbles at her chest, nails streaking bloody stripes across her pale flesh. “You’re not—I can’t—”

“It’s the dark side, Rey. It’s wildly out of balance and clouding the bond.” He presses. “You have to let go.”

She drops her hands, and her eyes widen.

“I know it’s hard, but you can do it.” He takes a tentative step forward. “Just let it go.” The dark side is voracious and possessive, hooks its talons deep in users. He knows precisely how excruciating it is to pry them out.

She shakes her head again and backs away. Her forehead creases and her mouth parts with the same stricken expression when she first used Force-lightning on Pasaana—only magnified a hundredfold. But the fog retracts, colossal darkness collapsing in on itself like a neutron star. Her emotions gust through him, too chaotic to untangle.

“Ben—” His name is a plaintive mew on her lips. “What have I done?” She meets his gaze, her distress overtakes all else, and she plunges her face into her hands. “What have I done?”

He darts forward and folds her heaving shoulders within his embrace. Her tears soak his chest. But the bond—the bond clears and surges open like shared breath. Like a wave of light cresting over an undertow of dark. The push and pull of life coursing between them. He feels whole again. Oh, the relief.

“Rey,” he murmurs into her hair. It’s grungy and snarled and he couldn’t care less. “Rey. Sweetheart. Whatever is wrong in the worlds can be made right so long as we have each other.”

She raises her eyes, red-rimmed and glistening their natural gold-green but no longer burning with darkness.

“Ben,” she says again, as if she can’t say his name enough. Her fingers comb into his hair, drag against his scalp, and her eyes search his face. The gratitude, the love, the sheer joy at being alive and together—it feels like Exegol all over again. Any second she’s going to pull him into a kiss—

“I—I thought you were gone. Forever. I thought—” She bares her memories to him and images flash past. The devouring dark, the galaxy falling in flames at her feet.

“Rey, no,” he whispers and he can’t mask his horror. That she could do this, could wreak such destruction—and for him? If only he could spare her the burden of this guilt. Spare them both.

“There’s no making this right.” She shudders with a desperation that clenches in his gut.

“It’s never too late.” He was restored to the light in the eleventh hour, just like his grandfather before him. He has to believe; it _must_ be true. “You’ve already turned. We can start over right here, right now.”

“I wish we could.” Her lower lip quivers and she hushes his protest with two fingers against his mouth. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Then she projects to his mind the Xyston-class Star Destroyer orbiting far above, its axial superlaser primed, and the automatic countdown set to ignition. There’s no one left alive on the ship to intervene, no transport off the planet, no means to communicate—not even a comm on her wrist.

His stomach plummets, but he kisses her fingers and murmurs. “How long?”

“At sunset,” she says.

On the skyline, the second sun is but a citrus rind discarded in the sand.

_No. Not—_

Ben crushes her to his chest. His brave girl. How strong she is, to have rejected the seduction and compulsion of the dark. If he could choose his final seconds, he would choose to hold her in his arms. They will go together this time into the end of all things.

Her head tips back, her hands slide up to frame his face, and their mouths crash together in mutual consent, in longing and need. They kiss as if they could merge their very souls, as if they could compress a lifetime of kisses into this single, unsullied moment.

Blinding light rends the heavens. Then a deafening roar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content/Trigger Warnings  
> \- Nudity: More of same from chapter 1. In the first scene (Ben POV), skip from “Her palm on his thigh spreads light through him…” and resume at single word line “Rey.”  
> \- Implied/Referenced Suicide/Thoughts and Character Death: I wasn’t sure how to tag this. Grieving Dark!Rey is bent on destroying the galaxy—which necessarily includes herself. Skip the second scene (Rey POV). In the third scene (Ben POV), skip from “Her lower lip quivers and she hushes his protest with two fingers against his mouth…” through end of chapter.
> 
> Reference  
> \- Black melon. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Black_melon  
> \- Chaos. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chaos


	3. Chant an Elegy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jump to end note for this chapter’s content and trigger warnings.

> “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”

The explosion unmakes them, until there’s only the purifying light searing through their bond and every foul shade flees. Being incinerated and uniting with the Force should hurt, Rey thinks, but it doesn’t.

Even drowning in the sea of light, Ben’s arms are a breakwater around her. His broad palm cradles her neck, strong and firm and warm. His fingers caress the hairline at her nape. And his lips, the way they kiss— They are made one again, as they have been before, as they will be forever. If this is her last breath, she gladly cedes it to him.

When they part, Rey inhales and opens her eyes. How can she have corporeal form if they’ve become one with the Force? She was prepared for the World Between Worlds at least, but somehow they’re back in the bleak throne room. On Exegol. The battle rages high overhead and ashes float on the air. As if the clock has reset.

But they’re alive.

Grime coats Ben’s wan face and sweat clumps his hair. He’s no longer sunburnt and gritty with sand. He’s never been more beautiful.

The radiance of their bond is a shared sun illumining their souls.

He’s studying her the same way she’s studying him, in disbelief, in awe, in gratitude. It’s too good to be true, to have life snatched away and restored in the span of a kiss.

His mouth pulls into a smile, so broad and full of joy that her heart catches in breathless wonder. Her thumb traces the curve of his cheek, just to touch the glory. It doesn’t matter that she’s witnessed this smile before. For the rest of their lives, every time will be like the first time.

_I love you,_ she whispers into his mind. _I love you. I love you. I love you._

_Rey._ His smile falters and his eyelids sag. _Let me go this time._

_Ben, no._ This can’t be happening. Not again. She can’t bear it. Buzzing rings in her ears and gooseflesh rises on her arms. _Don’t leave me._

_I love you._ His muscles slacken and it takes all her depleted strength to lower his bulk as gently as she can. His words slur into her thoughts even as he begins to fade. _I will be… with… you..._

_Ben!_ Pain spasms her heart. His hand wanes, her grip closes on nothing, and only his clothes remain, empty and lifeless in the dust.

_Always_ drifts across their bond, his ephemeral voice borne on a current in the Force.

Rey stares and swallows. She pitches forward and curls around the ache in her chest. _No, no, no._ The dark side hovers and tantalizes just within reach. She gathers up his clothes and clutches them to her face. They smell of dirt and sweat and Ben.

_Please, Ben._ She rocks forward and squeezes her eyes closed. _Come back._ Agony pierces her heart. Is it possible to hurt so much and still survive?

Tendrils of dark power snake and twine around her. They tickle her ear, sibilant and alluring. So close. So easy. So satisfying. To lose herself in the seething rage, to make the dark dance to her bidding. A bottomless abyss. An endless maelstrom.

_Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering._ Maybe she heard it from Master Luke or read it in the faded ureti pages of an ancient Jedi text, but the message is stark and unadorned. So unlike the enthralling dark.

She’s faced this moment once before. This time she will choose a different path. Even if it means she must confront her fear of living without him.

***

The voyage to Ajan Kloss and reunion with the victorious Resistance pass in a blur.

Rey wants nothing more than to fly to Tatooine and confirm that Ben has reappeared in the Lars homestead. But she can’t bring herself to leave. Because what if he’s not there? As long as she doesn’t know, she can cling to this last thread of hope: that he’s waiting for her. That when she arrives, he’ll be at work on the antique vaporator. He’ll squint from beneath the shade of his palm and say, “What took you so long?”

She tries to help Chewie repair the _Falcon_ , but her hands shake too much to wield the tools and he chases her away.

She tries to sidetrack her whirling thoughts with her friends, but Finn and Rose, Poe and Kaydel are busy leading the final assault on the First Order and brokering peace in the galaxy. Too busy to question her abstraction.

How could she explain anyway? _The man you knew as Kylo Ren? He shares my soul in the Force. And I love him with all my being. The first time he died, I literally destroyed the entire galaxy in my grief. So I’m finding it a little difficult to live with myself—and without him._ How could they possibly begin to understand? Even Maz offers only an enigmatic nod and confirms the belonging Rey seeks still lies ahead. As if she could find any belonging apart from Ben.

She volunteers for missions as a pilot—and a Jedi, albeit with reluctance, since she doesn’t deserve the title. Not after what she’s done. She’s grateful for the occupation, but the Resistance grounds her when her distraction nearly downs a wingman. And they order her to rest when she dissolves in tears while infiltrating a First Order bunker. Images of annihilation haunt her; she can’t sleep for the nightmares.

Deep in the rainforest she meditates with her new kyber crystals, but she can’t assemble her saberstaff. Knowing her capacity for evil—greater than the Emperor, greater than any being that’s ever lived—constrains and humbles her. It’s no excuse that she was driven by madness in her anguish or a twisted vision of peace. Day after day she prostrates her body on the bed of decaying leaves and weeps until the cracked cistern of her heart runs dry.

Perhaps she underestimated the influence of her Palpatine heritage. Perhaps she should disappear to Ahch-To, cut herself off from the Force like Luke did. She begins to understand why he did it. His self-loathing over his failure, over succumbing to the dark side and nearly murdering his nephew in his sleep. And she did infinitely worse. Decimated whole worlds, an entire galaxy.

But to sever herself from the Force is to sever herself from Ben. After the initial blinding paroxysms of sorrow, she finds he is much as he was in their last minutes—a shining presence within their bond, brilliance shot through with a gentle dark. She begs the Force to connect them, to give her some sign he’s alive. The Force does not oblige.

In the end, it’s Ben’s presence in her soul that confers the courage to construct her saberstaff. Wherever he is—whether this realm or the next—he loves her. She knows this with the certainty the suns will rise each morning. Somehow it was his love for her and hers for him that reversed the horror she unleashed on the galaxy. Undid it all as if it never happened. As if she has woken to find it was only a terror in the night. It is an undeserved grace. To love Ben—to honor his memory and value his sacrifice—means she will live and live with purpose. Peace is not absence of conflict, but rather life lived from a place of wholeness and healing.

Her thumb hesitates over her new saber’s ignition. She hasn’t powered on the Skywalker blades for fear they still bleed. What if— The black ring rotates with a click and a yellow beam showers the rainforest in golden hues. She closes her eyes in relief.

And so her journey begins.

***

First she must assuage her doubts. She needs to see with her own eyes what her heart refuses to believe. She takes the _Falcon—_ and BB-8 at her friends’ insistence. Their unaccustomed care is as confining as it is comforting. Chewbacca only permits her to leave him on Kashyyyk with promises she’ll be safe and return within his standard moon. The _Falcon_ is more ship than she should handle without a copilot, but she’s done it before and she needs to do this alone.

On Tatooine, the domed homestead is the same burned-out shell. Except there are no footprints in the sand. No vaporator extracts water from the dry air.

Ben isn’t here.

Her hope was a fragile thing to start; it shatters on the cracked ground. Maybe he’s appeared elsewhere, but she’d drive herself crazy scouring the galaxy for him. If he were alive, the Force would have connected them or he would have found means to contact her by now. However unwilling she is to admit this outcome, she knew the likelihood before she departed Ajan Kloss.

Ben’s gone. Really and truly gone.

The ache is a wrenching, blinding pain that doubles her in half and squeezes more tears from her arid soul. The dark side tempts her again—perhaps it always will—and offers power as consolation, but she rejects such solace for the fraud it is.

_Let me go this time,_ he said. _I will be with you always._ And she grasps what he meant. The dyad does indeed stretch across the veil, which means he is there, on the far side, waiting for her. At least she is not left comfortless.

She winds the Skywalker sabers in felt the color of richest sunset and buries them with the dignity they deserve. Her saber burns in homage and the crystal chants an elegy.

Luke and Leia’s Force-spirits appear as if summoned. Rey’s half-disappointed Ben doesn’t stand with them—perhaps he will appear to her in a private moment. Still, she bows her heart before his mother and uncle’s benevolent gazes.

_Thank you,_ she sends into the Force, _for everything. For teaching me. For helping us defeat Palpatine. For your role in giving me this second chance._ As she suspects they did. _I will not squander it. Watch over him,_ she adds in parting, too moved to say more. They’ll understand who she means.

To the nomad, she again identifies herself as Rey Skywalker. The old woman will never know to whom she owes her continued existence. ‘Skywalker’ is a small enough tribute, an atonement of sorts for Rey’s judgment in another life.

Ben’s name is hers as surely as his soul warms her with his light, as surely as the dyad crosses the boundary between life and death. But for now, ‘Solo’ is a treasure she keeps tucked safe within the vault of her heart. It is too precious to share, not when his loss is still fresh, not when she has yet to reconcile with her crushed dreams.

The binary suns descend together toward the horizon. A mated pair, always chasing and never overtaking. But the dark side is a master of deception and blinded her to the truth. She was wrong; it’s not a curse at all. It’s only that Ben precedes her and his light will always illumine the path she is to follow.

Until she too steps beyond the veil, until she sinks beyond the horizon and into his waiting arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content/Trigger Warnings  
> \- Character Death: This is Ben’s canon death in TROS. In first scene (Rey POV), skip from “Rey. His smile falters and his eyelids sag. Let me go this time” to end of scene (or skip the entire first scene).  
> \- PTSD: Implied through typical symptoms. In second scene (Rey POV), skip from “She tries to help Chewie repair the Falcon” and resume at “Perhaps she underestimated the influence of her Palpatine heritage.”


	4. Sow the Splendor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jump to end note for this chapter’s content and trigger warnings.

Stars coat the desert in a crystalline film by the time Ben staggers into view of the Lars homestead. His soles are singed and raw, the rags with which he bound them having long since shredded on the stones.

If only the Force had manifested him in the same place again. But, no, this time he closed his eyes on Exegol and opened them in Ben Kenobi’s old home, as if he owed a duty to his namesake.

And this time it was Obi-Wan and Anakin’s Force-spirits who conspired against his impatience to cross the desert and seek for Rey, asserting with that irritating condescension common to Jedi Masters that the Force would show him when the time was right. Not that he isn’t grateful for their company—or their counsel. He’s had a surfeit of days to commune with his grandfather, to reflect on and wrestle with guilt and responsibility, and to embark on the path to forgiveness.

But they were no help at all on the long, dry march across the burning sands, once he recognized his dad’s old ship slipping through atmo.

He works up enough spittle to swallow. At least he’s alive. How many times can a man die? This must make it three—four, if he counts his fatal wound on Kef Bir. Were it possible to recompense his choices as Kylo Ren, he likes to think he’s at least made a down payment. But he won’t question why or how. Maybe it’s their dyad, maybe the Force seeking balance, or maybe the immutability of their love.

He’s just grateful—and ready for a good long life with the woman who holds his heart. There’s no reason not to hope. In their bond, Rey’s Force-signature had flickered unsteadily for a while before stabilizing, but now she’s this seamless blend of sunshine and shadow. It’s absolutely stunning—with no sign of the terrible dark.

The _Falcon_ hulks in the night, obscuring the stars. For once, resentment and rage don’t rise at the sight. No, the _Falcon_ feels like arms outstretched in invitation, like an embrace, like coming home. He drags his weary bones up the ramp. Rey should know better than to leave it lowered. He’ll have to remind her about security, even for a Force-user.

He pursues her cheerful humming around the circular passage and into the galley. A little orange and white BB unit idles in a docking bay, the same droid that started it all, if he’s not mistaken. Whatever Rey’s cooking smells divine. His stomach growls like an exasperated Wookiee.

She spins around. This time he’s ready for a Force-blast, but her eyebrows only soar upward as both hands cover her mouth and muffle her cry. “Ben!”

“Rey,” he croaks out.

Her eyes are thick with moisture as she stares, but she is strong and hale and beautiful. She is everything. A deep breath shudders through her, and she flies across the galley to throw herself into his arms.

He lurches, winces on his tender feet, and nearly crashes to the grated deck.

“Ben,” she repeats over and over, his name caught on wobbly little exhales between sobs and sniffles. She steadies his swaying form and pats his shoulders, his chest. Runs her fingers down his arms. Grips his hands. Every stroke is a sunburst under his skin. “You’re really here?”

“Yes.” He blinks against the dizziness. “It was a long walk.”

Tears anoint her dimpled cheeks, but her smile— Her smile outshines the stars. He can feel how incredulity and euphoria battle for ascendancy within her.

He musters a feeble smile in return.

“Ben,” she says and this time his name settles onto a sigh. Her hands hover near his face and he stoops into her touch. Her fingers are blessed cool on his sunburnt skin, her mouth impossibly soft on his cracked lips, just the mildest press of skin to skin. It’s not much as far as kisses go, but it’s love and light and sweet reunion.

He moans and doesn’t mean to crumble, but his weight sags onto her.

She tugs his arm across her shoulders and slips another around his waist. “Come on, big guy.”

He stumbles and his eyelids are durasteel weights. The Force buoys him—her doing—and she maneuvers his mass onto a bench. His head lolls to follow as she straightens and her nose wrinkles.

His stomach rumbles another complaint. “Sorry. Must smell like a bantha.”

“But you’re alive.” Amazement flares through her again. She hiccups and snuffles and scrubs at her eyes. “And you’re here.”

“Rey…” If only he could pull her onto his lap and hold her, reassure her—reassure them both—that the nightmare is past, that the Force is balanced at last, that nothing will ever separate them again, but he’s too exhausted to reach for her. He nudges what comfort he can across the intangible cord that binds their hearts.

Her thoughts wash through him in response—the heat and hunger, the desperation of a desert scavenger. She would be the last to criticize him for his present state. She’s simply elated he’s alive. She swallows and he can almost see her indomitable spirit rise. “Which one first, then, food or ‘fresher?”

“Food,” he says. Definitely food. He sips the water she places in his shaking hand—paradise to his desiccated throat—and his bleary eyes track her back into the galley. His ever-practical Rey.

It’s almost anticlimactic. But after all the death and drama, the sorrow and suffering, he will not take for granted the significance of the mundane. He will mark this moment, the first in thousands of meals they’ll share, the dawn of their life together. Contentment snuggles within his soul. The dyad is whole and his heart is full.

***

Rey can’t sleep. If she closes her eyes, Ben might evaporate like some sacred vision in the night before she opens them again. But he’s real and he’s here, snoring softly behind her. Her nape tingles with his every exhalation.

She almost hadn’t managed to haul him into bed. After food and the ‘fresher, they wrestled him into the clothes she salvaged from Exegol. She didn’t explain why she kept them or that his sweater had become _her_ sleepshirt; he’ll discover that soon enough. Fatigue buckled his knees, but she succeeded in levitating him onto the mattress. He groaned, wiggled his fingers in summons, and was asleep the instant she crawled into his arms.

It’s new and strange and soothing, being held by him like this when she’s never slept with anyone. His heart beats strong and steady beside her spine, his solid frame curves around and dwarfs hers, and his arm clutches her torso as if he too fears she’ll disappear. Perhaps it will take time before they’re both secure in the miracle. She could remain here forever, even if it is hot as blazes, but she longs to—needs to see his face.

She prods with the Force. Ben’s deep enough in slumber that he won’t wake. She shifts out of his arms and rolls toward him.

Dim illumination through the cabin’s open door casts shadows from his gaunt and blistered features. That’s her fault, even if he doesn’t blame her. She tried to apologize for abandoning him to sojourn in a wasteland, but he halted her confession mid-sentence. Explained the wait was not without value and there were important lessons he might otherwise have missed.

She begrudges every moment they spent apart, yet couldn’t she say the same? 

She lays cautious fingers on his rough cheek. It’s still hard to believe he’s actually here. But it’s the easiest thing in the worlds to let the light flow up and into him. To watch it course through him, smoothing his skin, restoring his strength, repairing what is broken. The well is so deep and so vast that it takes almost nothing at all. Light rises around them, cocoons them in warmth, brims over and fills their berth with a humming, golden glow.

He stirs and murmurs, “Rey.”

“I’m here,” she murmurs back and reaches for his hand.

He closes his fingers around hers. She tries to stroke the breadth of his knuckles with her thumb, but she can only reach just past the first digit. She rests there, watching him sleep, overwhelmed by his presence in her soul and in her bed, by her hopes made flesh. _Ben. My beloved Ben. At last._

She maps the irregular contours of his face, sloping and angular, every dark fleck on his fair skin a point of fascination. He’s younger in repose, sleep narrowing the decade that separates them. She counts the unhurried rise and fall of his chest—because it means he’s at peace and breathing. And beneath the twitch of his eyelids, she recalls the intensity of his eyes as he looked at her, whole worlds of love in their starry depths. How is it that one such as she could be so blessed to have him restored? It is pure, unadulterated grace. And she will never cease to glory in the gift.

When Rey wakes from a dreamless and restful slumber, Ben is gone. She sits up, heart hammering, and the linens tangle around her legs. Was it only an exquisite fantasy?

_It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here,_ floats into her mind on a wave of calm. _Just brewing some caf. Join me?_

***

Will the novelty of holding hands and staring into her eyes ever become commonplace? They’re onto their second cup and Ben’s certain he’ll still look at Rey the same way when he’s old and grey.

“I like the sound of that,” she says.

“What?”

“Old and grey.”

“Oh?” He sees the image of his father—craggy features, crooked smile, crown of salt-and-pepper hair—that flits through her memory and arches an eyebrow in mostly-feigned offense. “Am I not distinguished enough for you?”

“No, you moof-milker.” She laughs and squeezes his fingers where they’re joined on the dejarik table. “Because it means we have a long life together.”

They haven’t discussed it—not yet, not in so many words—what this long life that stretches into the future will look like. But the reciprocated assumption they’ll live it together is enough for now. Their bond hums with shared joy beyond all comprehension and he ducks his smile. Life is good. So beautiful and _good_. Let every day be a testimony to his gratitude.

“Don’t ever hide your smile, Ben. I _love_ your smile.” Her fingers glide under his jaw and lift his chin. His soul warms with the impression of what his smile meant to her, those two times on Exegol, how he feels like the embodiment of all her hopes. It’s a heady thought. And humbling.

He grins. He can’t help it. And they lose themselves in each other’s eyes, in the soaring harmony of their souls. 

Squealing interrupts their reverie. The BB unit whirs into the lounge bleeping with urgency. Something about flowers? He’s half-inclined to bop it over its interfering little astromech brain.

Rey’s brow furrows before her mouth tips into a fond smile. Her compassion drives even a weakness for droids. “We’re coming, Beebee-ate. Lead the way.”

Ben’s hand is still wrapped around hers as he follows through the _Falcon_ and down the ramp. They halt side by side, and he scans the Tatooine desert.

Not desert. Not anymore.

Jade shades the landscape as far as eye can see—bushes and trees and grass rippling in the wind. There’s a breeze, balmy with just a hint of humidity. Running water tinkles in his ears. A stream nearby? The Force is abuzz with life and light. And there are flowers. Endless varieties explode in riotous hues to rival Chandrila’s botanic gardens. How is this possible?

“Ben.” Rey draws out his name, her voice hushed with awe. As if he had something to do with this.

Releasing his hand, she wades into the verdure. She caresses the thin, curved stem of a funnel flower and cradles a yellow giant blossom larger than a dinner plate. A pocket of green daisies flares open under her attention and she giggles, her delight tickling him where their minds meet.

She bends to smell a musk-rose. Has he ever seen a prettier picture—Rey draped in white, her lashes lowered and fresh face bowed into the pale pink bloom? She catches the resonance of his thoughts and casts him a soft, blushing smile. His heart swoops.

He trails her through a luxuriance of silver everlily and purple passion, past the rare fragile tendrils of a century flower and bowers of fragrant blue nannariums, their perfume potent and intoxicating.

He pauses over the golden-throated flame-lilies and ombre-hued flame-roses. If only his mother could see this. And maybe she can. He swings around.

Vines climb the _Falcon_ ’s scuffed sides, dripping with magenta queen’s hearts and clusters of aromatic vormur that swing like bells. The flowers are densest near the ship, sweeping outward in a wide circle and tapering off into the greensward. 

Rey twirls across a royal carpet of tiny sapphire blossoms dotted with white centers. Alderaanian starflowers. As if the stars have fallen from the heavens and she dances with the galaxy at her feet. Head thrown back, arms flung wide, white wraps floating like gossamer ribbons. The enormity of her happiness—her unalloyed bliss—billows into him. It’s like her soul has split open and sown the planet with the splendor that lies within.

He crosses to her and she spins him, laughing, into giddy circles. Colors blend in a dizzying blur. He tugs her to a halt and looks down into her beaming face. “Rey. You did this.”

“Oh—I—” She glances around and blinks. “Maybe when I healed you? Last night. There was so much light—in you, in me, welling up between us. It might have spilled over.”

“Just a little.” He chuckles and draws closer, brings his hands up to curl his fingers around her nape, searches her changeable hazel eyes. They’re topaz-veined emeralds, out here among the green and growing things, animated by the vibrant Force. “Rey, you healed the entire planet.”

“ _We_ did.” She tilts her head back. “Together. Through the dyad.”

Of course they did. _The life-force of your bond. A power like life itself._

His lips aren’t chapped anymore when he strokes them along the arch of her eyebrow and scatters little kisses down her temple. The roses in her cheeks are far lovelier than any that have sprung from the soil. He kisses one and then the other.

She hums and her eyelids drift closed, lashes fanning across the freckles that span the bridge of her nose.

He lowers his head to press his mouth against the corner of her lips. They part in a smile and her breath ghosts across his skin, sweeter than the honeyblossoms. Her pleasure is not the aching urgency of desire, but a luminous pulse that drenches him in her gentle glow.

And it wrecks him.

He’s utterly lost. That this woman, this fierce warrior—blazing with light, woven with dark and wielding power to eclipse his own—should save him and fight for him. That she loves him, then and now.

She’s as transparent and open to him as the cloudless sky. He’s rendered speechless by how she views him—she who is so determined and capable—that she wraps her strength within his might, shelters her heart within his own, rests in the union of their souls with unconditional trust. What privilege is his. What rapture. With what tenderness and reverence shall he cherish and protect and love her.

His heart pummels his ribcage when he takes her face between his trembling hands. When he slides his palms along the delicate line of her jaw, his fingers into the hair gathered behind her ears, his thumbs across her dewy cheeks. And when her mouth melts into his, all the wonder, all the joy, all the hope and longing and love bloom in the beauty of their kiss.

> “Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses [six, counting Westley and Buttercup] that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. The End.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content/Trigger Warnings  
> \- Survival: In the first scene (Ben POV), implications for what surviving costs Ben. References would be hard to skip without skipping the entire scene, but then you’d miss Ben and Rey’s reunion.  
> \- Sweetness and light, fluff and flowers (in case you’re allergic): The remainder of the chapter (!).
> 
> Reference  
> Flowers. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Flowers
> 
> Thank you for reading! I usually write sweet stories with plenty of fluff and mild angst. This is the darkest and most painful piece I’ve ever attempted. Was there enough happy to balance the hurt? I’d love to hear your experience with it. ❤️


End file.
